Mercury Rising
in Watch the Mercury Rising Mercury Rising, the 1998 movie that was the genesis of Mercury Rising: The Series, is an action thriller film, starring Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Miko Hughes, Chi McBride, and Kim Dickens, and was directed by Harold Becker as well as produced by Brian Grazer. Plot Summary It was thought to be impenetrable. Undecipherable by any computer on Earth. Mercury was the ultimate super-code, until it was deciphered by a nine year-old autistic savant named Simon Lynch. He can read it easier than others read the English language. He is now deemed a threat by NSA's Lt. Colonel Nicholas Kudrow, who sends out hit-men to eliminate Simon. However, Simon has some luck on his side, as FBI Special Agent Art Jeffries befriends the boy and defends him from Kudrow's hit-men. Now Kudrow and his men will have to fight Jeffries if they want Simon, something that won't be an easy task for them... Plot The movie opens to the rural town of Sturgis, South Dakota, where a hostage crisis is being played out at a bank near the center of town. Anti-government radical Edgar Halstrom (Richard Riehle) and his militia group have seized the bank in defiance of the federal government and the FBI has surrounded the building, ready to storm it practically on a hair trigger. Working within the bank and Halstrom's group, Special Agent Art Jeffries (Bruce Willis) manages to convince Halstrom through his son James (Chad Lindberg) to surrender, and is within seconds of doing so when the SWAT team storms the building and kills everyone but the hostages and Jeffries - James then dies in his arms. Furious, Jeffries stalks outside and roughs up the operational supervisor & SAC John Hartley (John Doman) before punching him with his bloody fist and spitting at his feet. In Chicago about a week later, at the city's Neuropsychiatric Learning Center, Dr. Samantha London (Camryn Manheim) presents autistic nine year-old Simon Lynch (Miko Hughes) with a puzzle magazine, something he likes and knows is "...very, very special." Jeffries has arrived back at the city field office and is quick to be reprimanded by his boss and city SAC Joe Lomax (Kevin Conway), who reassigns him to menial stakeouts with rookies and public relations work even after arguing with Jeffries' best friend and A-SAC Tommy Jordan (Chi McBride), something Jeffries greatly laments and despises after 14 years of back-breaking undercover work. Simon is now at home with his mother Jenny (Kelly Hazen) and has begun to work on the puzzle magazine Dr. London gave him earlier. He opens it to Page 99 to find a puzzle the likes of which he has never before seen and triggers a primal ability, buried within his mind and one that unravels the gibberish of symbols on the page into a phone number, which he proceeds to call. This number leads to the 'Puzzle Center' at NSA's Division, watched over by analysts Leo Pedranski (Bodhi Pine Elfman) and Dean Crandell (Robert Stanton). Pedranski is on duty when the call comes through and Simon tells him that he solved Puzzle Ninety-Nine, which contains a top-secret communications code named MERCURY - Pedranski panics and informs Crandell, who insists on informing their boss, Lt. Colonel Nicholas Kudrow (Alec Baldwin) of the 'security breach'. At a briefing in Bangkok when the message arrives, Kudrow immediately prepares to leave and return to the US. At the same time, back in Chicago, Simon's father Martin (John Carroll Lynch) returns from work and rocks Simon to sleep in the boy's favorite rocking chair. Martin then lays his son to sleep, not knowing what he has done, neither that the situation is about to change drastically. Kudrow soon arrives back at Division, his attitude grim and cold. He calls a meeting with Pedranski and Crandell, who learn of the true nature of their mystery caller from him as he explains his point of view, believing Simon's condition to be one of 'diminished capacity'. This is quickly explained to Kudrow by Crandell as Simon being a savant and that he "...just saw it code." Kudrow then proceeds to intimidate the analysts into believing his point of view that Simon's uniqueness didn't solve the potential for a security breach which he now believes all too likely.to be one of 'diminished capacity'. This is quickly explained to Kudrow by Crandell as Simon being a savant and that he "...just saw it code." Kudrow then proceeds to intimidate the analysts into believing his point of view that Simon's uniqueness didn't solve the potential for a security breach to a foreign government which he now believes all too likely. He then orders them to erase the recording of Pedranski's conversation with the boy and that Simon himself be eliminated to seal the impending security leak. Later that day, (June 6) Kudrow's assassin Peter Burrell (L.L. Ginter) arrives at the Lynch home posing as a Chicago Police detective and kills both Martin and Jenny with single shots each from a silenced Walther PPK before searching for his real target: Simon. Burrell fails to find the boy, and frustrated, flees at the sound of approaching emergency sirens prompted by Martin's last-breath attempt to call 911. (Note: This plot review is incomplete as of - 11:42 PM EST, October 9, 2011) Cast *Bruce Willis as Art Jeffries *Alec Baldwin as Nicholas Kudrow *Miko Hughes as Simon Lynch *Chi McBride as Tommy Jordan *Kim Dickens as Stacey Siebring *John Carroll Lynch as Martin Lynch *Kelly Hazen as Jenny Lynch *Bodhi Elfman as Leo Pedranski *Robert Stanton as Dean Crandell *Kevin Conway as Joe Lomax *Carrie Preston as Emily Lang *L.L. Ginter as Peter Burrell Memorable Quotes * Simon (repeated line) - "Art is a stranger!" While driving through DC. * Leo - "Why are we doing this, Dean? Why does he want to see us way out there?! We - We didn't do anything wrong, right?" * Dean - "Should I turn around?" * Leo - "No. He'd kill us." * Dean - Well, he might kill us anyway." * Leo - "You being serious?!" * Dean - "Relax, Leo. Please." In the coffee shop, after Jeffries leaves. * Stacey - "Would have done it without the flattery?" Other Facts * The book Simple Simon by Ryne Douglas Pearson served as the basis for Mercury Rising, and despite several story elements differing between the two, the movie still retained the core details that made it highly likeable by the few loyal fans it has captured over the years since it's premiere in '98. * Despite making less than $100 million at the box office worldwide http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120749/ (only $32 million in the United States)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Rising, it still retains a following of fans over the years, even to this day. * The film was released on Blu-ray on September 14, 2010, more than twelve years after the theatrical releasehttp://www.movieweb.com/news/unleashed-and-mercury-rising-debut-on-blu-ray-on-september-14th. * At least three drafts of the film were made in 1996 alone, all titled Simple Simon, after the book. These seem to blend the book's plot with that of the final movie, with characters such as Art Jefferson, Mike Fiorello, Bizzi Jordan, Dean Andrews, and Stacia Sebring. See Also * Mercury Rising Photo Gallery References Category:Mercury Rising Continuity Category:Movies Category:Real World